Day 6 - More to see in this great city (Thursday 18th April 2024)

The morning was quite fresh again but the sky was clear. The wind this week has been mostly coming from the north-west, carrying a very icy chill with it. We’re in the lookout for a couple of beanies to try to keep the warmth in the scone. My leather, broad-brimmed akubra-style hat helps a lot but it’s not quite the appropriate fashion for this town and this time of year. Maybe that’s why the girls are always a few steps behind me?!

So we started the day with a visit to a store called Decathlon – an outdoors and sporting goods shop set up in an IKEA sort of way. Finding a beanie there was secondary as our mission was to find some thongs or flip-flops, if you please. We found the latter but not the former. Why would I be searching for thongs on a cold day in Budapest, I hear you say? All will be revealed later.

With great dismay we ducked into a nearby Starbucks. The dismay was not because we couldn’t find any beanies but because we were about to drink Starbucks coffee, if you can call it that. I remember the disappointment when we did the same in Postdamer Platz in Berlin in 2017. We only did that back then so we could use their facilities. This time it was actually for a coffee. Rest assured, it won’t happen again for another seven years. The coffee houses in Budapest are numerous and of very good quality. This Starbucks was just convenient.

Down Teréz Körút we walked looking for a Pharmacy so Emily could get something for the cold she had bought with her from Manchester. She’s been soldiering on so well under trying circumstances. With some assistance in her pocket we soon arrived at our first port of call for the day – the House of Terror at 60 Andrassy Ave. Those of you who know something about the Communist party control of Hungary might recognise the address. Others, like me, who did not, learned that it had been the headquarters of the AVH, the secret police arm of the ruling Hungarian Working People's Party in the People’s Republic of Hungary, a puppet government of the USSR. The AVH was modelled on and strongly influenced by the Soviet KGB. The brutality that occurred in that building and the fear and, as the name suggests, the terror that was struck into the hearts of the Hungarian people is something most of us can not begin to imagine. The final part of the 2.5hr tour which visited the cellars below the building where torture, depravity and murder took place. What we learned beggars belief. Folks, the things we protected Westerners see in movies and read in books are not the product of someone’s over-active imagination. Those things actually happen to real people and in the very recent past.

As well as the atrocities of the AVH, the exhibition painted a broad picture of life in general for the Hungarian people in the decades since the end of WWI up until that great day when “the wall” was breached and the Iron Curtain came down. Pardon me for sermonising, but for all those back home who complain about their lot, educate yourselves about how life was for people in countries like Hungary – a life they didn’t get to choose. Then sit back and compare that life with yours. I reckon I know which one you’d choose given the chance.

Time for a bit of light-hardheartedness. Time to put those thongs to good use. Turning left out of the House of Terror we headed to the far end of Andrassy Ave (not in our thongs!) where it meets Budapest’s City Park. A large and lovely park indeed with green lawns, huge mature trees (all in leaf now because we’re well into Spring), lakes and ponds, monuments and palaces and the famous Széchenyi Thermal Baths. Through the impressive entrance gate we marched and soon found the imposing building that houses the baths. Much of Hungary sits in the Carpathian Basin where the earth’s crust is quite thin. Consequently, the area is littered with hot springs bubbling up from the earth’s core. Public baths such as this one have been a feature of the lives of Budapest’s residents since the days when the Ottoman Turks ruled the land. The ornate Széchenyi baths were built in 1913. They’re the most well-known (and the most touristy, I suppose) but there’s a dozen others to choose from if you’re ever in Budapest and want to get some aquatic relaxation.

It’s BYO togs, towel, swimming cap (if you want to do laps) and, you guessed it, thongs! Thongs are mandatory footwear once inside the bathing facilities. Your entry ticket (27 Euros) provides access to all the pools and saunas and a private locker in the segregated, but open, changing areas. There a two very, very large pools separated by a large lap pool in the centre courtyard of the Baths. This is an outdoor aquatic experience, by the way, so a bit chilly when getting into the 30C water and really chilly when getting out! We lounged around in the first pool for 20 minutes letting the minerals do their job when Emily spied the second pool. Out we got and down there we headed with yours truly trying to look tough and not a bit cold. The water in Pool two is 38C and boy was it nice! Just like jumping into a warm bed on a freezing night. There we stayed for a further 30 minutes, I reckon, just watching the world float by!

A quick change back at the lockers and we left feeling refreshed and re-invigorated ready for the second half of the day. Our mission was to visit a park on the outskirts of Pest to sort of put a metaphoric full-stop on what we’d learned at the House of Terror. With Emily’s exquisite organisational and navigational skills we took subway trains, trams and a bus to get to our destination 10kms out of town. When the Communist regime toppled so too did most of the statues they’d erected to themselves, but not all. Some forward thinking people saved a couple of dozen of them and relocated them to Memento Park. Certainly not to glorify the regime but to remind the people of what the regime thrust upon them. I think there is a certain irony that the park is located way out in the boondocks far away from the heart of what is modern Hungary and that it is rather unkempt and in a state of disrepair, much in need of some TLC. The stone path of socialism winds it’s way from glorious monument to glorious monument in a series of conjoining figures of eight until it reaches a tall brick wall. At the brick wall there is no way forward. The visitor has no option but to do an about face and turn back to the place from whence he came – that path is straight and direct. That’s the beautiful message in this park. Memento Park barely rates in the guide books because it’s not an easy journey to get their and it ain’t pretty when you arrive. But neither was the thing it represents.

By now it was almost 5:00pm with one more thing to do. Back into town we went. Even way out in the boonies we waited for no longer than five minutes for the next bus then two minutes for the next train.

Have I mentioned how brilliant the Budapest public transport system is? The subway is modern and efficient and trains come every 2-3 minutes. All the main streets are serviced by an equally efficient and effective tram and bus network – take your choice! Interestingly, the Budapest subway came into being at about the same time as the London underground in the mid-nineteenth century. The original stations and the very short trains that provide the transport in between have a wonderful 19^th century feel about them. The newer stations are modern and way deeper underground and move masses of people efficiently. We loaded the BudapestGO app on our phones and purchased tickets via the app when we needed them. The ticket for today’s adventures was a 24hr travel card purchased for about AUD$8.00, while sitting on a park bench outside the Széchenyi baths, two minutes before we need them. We can use that ticket on any of the aforementioned transport systems until 3:00pm tomorrow - and we will.

Back in town I fired up Google and began to search for night cruises on the Danube. Believe me, there is no shortage of choice. The only possible issue was whether or not we could book one at this late hour – 90 minutes before our preferred time of 7:30pm. Strike one, on my first attempt. Home run on my second attempt. We even had time to stop for a beer at a micro-brewery located underground near St. Steven’s Basilica on our way down to the dock. When the boat cast-off dusk was well underway with night not yet here but fast approaching. All the cruise boats follow the same route up the river (thankfully!), starting at the docks near the Elisabeth Bridge, sailing past the Houses of Parliament, chucking a u-ey, sailing down way past the docks and then back home. It all takes about 60 minutes which is quite long enough especially for the silly people who choose to sit on the open-air top deck, like the Smiths. Man was it cold up there. Even the red wine in hand was like drinking a Shiraz straight out of the fridge. Despite the “hardship”, the cruise was a fun thing to do with my girls. As darkness fell, the river, the bridges and the city lit up as expected and the spectacle did not disappoint.

It had been another long, but fun, interesting and informative day. For the final act, Emily led us to a Middle-eastern style cafe (a small Budapest-born chain, called hummusbar) where we enjoyed a lovely, tasty and nourishing bit of “fast food” for dinner. Emily took a short walk home and we wound our way through the streets and lanes back to our hotel 15 minutes walk away.